White Heat is Dominic Sandbrook's follow up to Never Had it so Good (2005), his history of Britain in the 1950s. Here he demolishes the myths that surround the 1960s, yet still leaves you wishing you had lived through the era (or could re?live it).

His title is taken from Harold Wilson's famous 1963 speech promising a modern and efficient Britain. As becomes clear, though, Wilson's vision remained little more than that, and his government found itself constantly beset by crises.

Alongside a masterly explanation of the politics are chapters covering the major social developments of the decade. Sandbrook argues convincingly that many of the changes in British life were regarded with suspicion (and often outright hostility) by a population that remained essentially conservative. Although the tone sometimes sounds a little young fogeyish, the decade is treated with the seriousness it deserves. We await with anticipation his volume on the 1970s.JR

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As China prepares to host the Olympics next year, it is intriguing to look back to the week when its engagement with the West suddenly flowered into life. In an astonishing diplomatic coup, President Nixon visited Beijing, met Mao, and changed the world. Margaret MacMillan's excellent primer takes us through the months of exquisite diplomatic footwork that preceded the meeting, and lays out the politics and personalities involved. The details are entrancing, in particular the culture clashes between the American media and their baffled yet hospitable hosts.RC

Consuming Passions by Judith Flanders

Judith Flanders offers an informative and absorbing insight into how the Victorians spent their leisure time in this comprehensive history, full of pointed writing with humorous asides and footnotes. It is an engaging read: along the way, we learn of T?S Eliot's aborted title for The Waste Land ("He Do the Police in Different Voices") and of the "little leather boots" worn by Christmas turkeys as they were herded on foot from East Anglia to London. Whatever your interests, Flanders's book is a detailed account that will please all its readers.JE

Good and Bad Power by Geoff Mulgan

A book written by an ex-Eurocrat and one-time advisor to Gordon Brown on the theory and practice of good government isn't likely to challenge the new Harry Potter for sales, but it would be a shame if Geoff Mulgan were to be ignored. With wit and clarity, he grapples with the moral imperatives that both drive and elude democracies, employing an astonishingly wide range of historical references. There are no easy answers but this is an informative and entertaining analysis and Mulgan is an author keen to share, rather than flaunt, his knowledge.TS

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

Will Cooper, an apprentice working close to the Cherokee Nation in the 19th century, is adopted by Bear, a Cherokee chief. Eventually, Will leads the political fight against the forced transfer of the Indians while also falling in love, duelling and fighting in the Civil War.

At times, Thirteen Moons is unsure whether it is an epic or a coming-of-age story, and Will's thoughts often veer towards the ponderous.

But he remains a memorable character, both serious and roguish, and Charles Frazier writes with such exuberance about the last gasps of Indian independence that it is easy to forgive the lapses.JB

Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann, tr by Carol Brown Janeway

This marvellous historical adventure brings together two Enlightenment heavyweights: the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and the scientist Alexander von Humboldt. While Humboldt goes on a quest across South America, measuring and counting everything he sees – from the height of mountains to the number of lice on the heads of whores – Gauss dreams up the death of Euclidean geometry. The writing is a treat – a rich combination of irony and sensuality – and Daniel Kehlmann has a masterful comic eye.JG

Things I Didn't Know by Robert Hughes

Robert Hughes's wonderful memoir of his life up to his appointment as art critic for Time magazine in 1970 starts with a bang: in bone-crunching detail, he describes a car crash that left him mangled in hospital in 1999.

It's a virtuoso set piece that establishes the tone for what's to come: a scintillating account of an enthralling life, narrated with verve, wit and poise.

Hughes's description of his father's exploits as an airman engaged in lightning-fast dogfights during the First World War is brilliantly exciting.AS

Passionate Minds by David Bodanis

The 10-year marriage of minds - and bodies - between Voltaire and Emilie du Châtelet was the crucible of the Enlightenment:

David Bodanis hints in this novelistically written account that without his intellectually superior lover, Voltaire might not have been the historical catalyst he was.

In an era when most women could not sign their own names, du Châtelet's achievement in popularising the abstruse ideas of Newton was extraordinary. This tale of a turbulent yet productive relationship moves and inspires. KO

The Naked Jape by Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves

Jokes are a serious business, say the comedian Jimmy Carr and his old friend Lucy Greeves. But their intention is to amuse as well as inform, and their useful synthesis of scientific and historical theories about jokes and why we need them (mostly to make us feel secure, it seems) makes easy reading, enlivened by more than 450 hand-picked gags, old and new.

Some run along the bottom of each page, others are thematically collected at each chapter end. KO

The Lion and the Unicorn by Richard Aldous

Gladstone and Disraeli have been endlessly biographised but this is the first time they have been treated jointly. Richard Aldous examines their intense, long-term personal and professional rivalry even-handedly, and if the detail of parliamentary politicking can be a little dense, he strongly evokes the personalities of these 'dialectical sparring partners' whose differences illuminate key 19th-century issues still vital today, such as free trade, nationalism and human rights. KO

A Hedonist in the Cellar by Jay Mcinerney

'The 1990 Veuve Cliquot rosé seems a little clumsy after the Dom Perignon, but comes into its own with the Cantonese lobster.'

Readers in whom this sort of stuff induces feelings of vertigo should stick to lager and tea-bags. But the American novelist Jay McInerney, who writes a wine column for House & Garden, is at least able to laugh at his own obsessions.

His tour d'horizon of the wine regions of the world is good-natured and, although occasionally pretentious, highly readable. SC

Lorenzo da Ponte by Rodney Bolt

Lorenzo Da Ponte was Mozart's librettist; he was also a colourful character in his own right, as this affectionate biography shows. Born a poor Venetian Jew he became an unlikely Catholic priest and later a theatre poet at the court of Joseph II in Vienna; friend to Casanova he was also a dandy and a libertine.

His rackety adventures around European cities until his final incarnation as a professor in New York are put into wonderfully detailed context. Rodney Bolt wears his learning admirably lightly. KO

In The Wake by Per Petterson

Garlanded with literary prizes, including the 2007 IMPAC Award, the Norwegian writer Per Petterson draws on his personal experience of the sinking of the Scandinavian Star for this bleak novella.

The main character is a novelist in the grip of writer's block after losing his parents and brothers in a ferry accident. He is crippled by survivor guilt and can barely focus on those around him. Only the woman he glimpses in the flat across the street seems able to mirror his emotions… SC